E-sports cap­i­tal

An agree­ment-sign­ing cer­e­mony to build Shang­hai into a global e-sports cap­i­tal and de­velop key e-sports projects in Pudong New Area was held in Pudong re­cently, mark­ing that the TI9 DOTA 2 Cham­pi­onship and the Steam China pro­ject will set­tle in Pudong of­fi­cially. A num­ber of key e-sports com­pa­nies, ma­jor e-sports events and im­por­tant e-sports plat­form also signed con­tracts to set­tle in Pudong.

Hang Ying­wei, head of Pudong, said in a speech that Pudong will fur­ther op­ti­mize the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, sup­port heavy­weight e-sports con­tent, R&D en­ter­prises, e-sports clubs, and e-sports teams to set­tle in Pudong. The dis­trict will also take more pre­cise and ef­fec­tive mea­sures to ac­cel­er­ate the build­ing of e-sports ecosys­tems, in­tro­duce e-sports in­dus­trial or­ga­ni­za­tions and tour­na­ment leagues and log­i­cally de­ploy the lay­out of high-end e-sports com­pre­hen­sive sites and train­ing venues.

In re­cent years, China’s e-sports in­dus­try’s out­put value has been grow­ing by over 20 per­cent an­nu­ally, and it is ex­pected to ex­ceed 80 bil­lion yuan ($11.63 bil­lion) in 2018. Thanks to the unique lo­ca­tion and rich cul­tural and recre­ational re­sources, Shang­hai has al­ways been the cen­ter of the coun­try’s e-sports in­dus­try. The out­put of the Pudong’s e-sports in­dus­try ac­counts for nearly one­tenth of the coun­try.

In Au­gust of this year, Pudong an­nounced the es­tab­lish­ment of the “Shang­hai e-sports in­dus­try de­vel­op­ment core func­tional area” to fur­ther con­sol­i­date its dom­i­nant po­si­tion in the in­dus­try. At the sign­ing cer­e­mony, Shang­hai Mu­nic­i­pal Cul­ture and Tourism Bureau, Shang­hai Mu­nic­i­pal Ed­u­ca­tion Com­mis­sion and Shang­hai Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Sports also re­leased a se­ries of new plans, new poli­cies and new pi­lot pro­grams.

Shang­hai Mu­nic­i­pal Cul­ture and Tourism Bureau, in par­tic­u­lar, re­leased a work plan re­lated to the build­ing of the e-sports cap­i­tal. Shang­hai Mu­nic­i­pal Ed­u­ca­tion Com­mis­sion granted the sta­tus of “Shang­hai Vo­ca­tional Ed­u­ca­tion E-sports Pi­lot School” to Shang­hai Qunx­ing Vo­ca­tional Tech­ni­cal School, tak­ing the first step in the ex­plo­ration of e-sports ed­u­ca­tion.

The dis­trict will also en­cour­age its higher and mid­dle vo­ca­tional and tech­ni­cal schools to take the lead in set­ting up an e-sports ma­jor and e-sports man­age­ment stud­ies, fur­ther en­hanc­ing the pop­u­lar­ity of the e-sports in­dus­try and strength­en­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of e-sports in­dus­try tal­ent.

Stan­dard­ized and or­derly

Shang­hai Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Sports clar­i­fied that the regis­tra­tion sys­tem for e-sports ath­letes will be put into trial use in Pudong, and the pro­fes­sional level of e-sports ath­letes will be fur­ther raised through stan­dard­ized and or­derly man­age­ment. In ad­di­tion, a se­ries of third-party e-sports events un­der of­fi­cial lead­er­ship will also be held in Pudong.

A guide­line to build an “e-sports cap­i­tal” core func­tional area of Shang­hai in Pudong was also re­leased at the cer­e­mony. Ac­cord­ing to this guide­line, Pudong will strengthen its sup­port for e-sports ex­hi­bi­tions, in­dus­try sum­mits, dis­tri­bu­tion plat­forms and top-level events.

It will build a com­plete e-sports in­dus­try chain and a sound en­vi­ron­ment for the de­vel­op­ment of cul­tural and creative in­dus­tries, and en­cour­age China (Shang­hai) Pi­lot Free Trade Zone to in­volve in tri­als and im­prove­ment of the rules con­cern­ing e-sports com­pe­ti­tions.

Lead­ing e-sports com­pa­nies such as Ten­cent E-sports, Per­fect World and Wangjing Tech, ma­jor e-sports events and plat­forms also signed co­op­er­a­tion con­tracts at the cer­e­mony with re­lated or­ga­ni­za­tions of Pudong. The dis­trict will fur­ther form an ag­glom­er­a­tion of the e-sports in­dus­try via the in­tro­duc­tion of key plat­forms and im­por­tant events.

Gu Lim­ing, se­nior vice pres­i­dent of Per­fect World, said that the com­pany’s TI9 Cham­pi­onship (the 9th DOTA 2 In­ter­na­tional in­vi­ta­tional tour­na­ment) is sched­uled to be held at the MercedesBenz Arena (Shang­hai) in Au­gust in 2019. TI9’s bonus is ex­pected to reach a record of $30 mil­lion.

Steam China, a world lead­ing gam­ing plat­form, is sched­uled to be lo­cated in Zhangjiang, which will strongly sup­ple­ment the de­vel­op­ment of the Pudong e-sports in­dus­try and en­hance the ag­glom­er­a­tion ef­fect of the e-sports in­dus­try in Shang­hai. More­over, Wangjing Tech plans to in­tro­duce nearly 500 e-sports com­pa­nies from around the world to Pudong to help cre­ate the “Sil­i­con Val­ley of E-sports.”

Photo: VCG

A man tries an elec­tronic game at the China In­ter­na­tional Im­port Expo held in Novem­ber.